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Insanity + Bullhorn = “Sound and fury signifying nothing”

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but I take the
train to work. For some reason, people downtown seem to feel the
need to use bullhorns to foist their opionions on us as we make our
daily grind to work and back. While I find the use of a
bullhorn, in and of itself to be offensive, I find some of the ideas
these…ummm….crackpots espouse to be both laughable and
offensive. Unfortunately, I find that having a battle of wits
with an unarmed opponent to be…well…amusing, so it’s hard for me to
resist baiting them a bit. Really, do these people ever consider
what comes out of their mouths? Why is it that expect the rest of
us take up something they themselves are unwilling to do?

Here’s a few examples:

The PETA Freak

We had a PETA supporter who was advocating setting all the animals
at the zoo loose. Mind you, after speaking to her for a few
minutes, I was able to determine that she did not simply mean returning
them to the wild. She wanted to go to the zoo and throw the cages
open, leaving these beasts free to roam the city. She got rather
upset when I asked her if she was willing to be the one to open the
tiger pens. “But…but….tigers are dangerous.” DUH!
Why do you think they’re in a cage?

Government is Good For You Freak

We had an anti-gun demonstator. For those of you who don’t
know me, this is area where I have rather strong opinions. Since
outlawing guns only takes weapons from law-abding citizens, I think
that we should arm everyone. You hit legal age and you get issued
a side arm. So I go over to chat with this person:

Me: So you want to pass laws that make it illegal for anyone to own a gun.

Him: That’s right. If there were no guns, there’d be less violence.

Me: Ok, so criminals who, by definition, are already breaking the law are going to obey this new law you want to pass?

Him: Sure..the penalites would be very severe.

Me: This is Texas. You commit murder here, we kill you back. People still commit murder. Just how severe a penalty are we talking about?

Him: Oh, uh…several years in prison.

Me: Yeah, riiiiight, that stops lots of people.
Forging checks gets you several years in prison. People still do
that all the time. You want people to obey a law like that, it
had better include some mideval torture. Drawing and quartering
might do it, but I doubt it. That didn’t work particulary well
when it was still in use. Of course, you can’t actually do
nowdays that since it violates their civil liberties.

Him: I’m not talking to you anymore. You’re evil.

Me: Evil??? Do you have any idea how many store clerks
are murdered during the course of a robbery each year? How many
liquor stores and convienence stores do you think would get robbed if
the criminals knew for a fact that everyone in the store was packing?

Him: Get away from me!

Me: Hah! If you had a gun, you could make me leave.

Anti-Hunting Demonstrator

I don’t know how many of you know this, but deer season just
opened. We had an anti-hunting demonstrator chanting that
“Hunters should hunt each other.” I’m fairly open-minded and
willing to listen to a well thought out argument for almost
anything. Advocating murder, however, pushes the bounds of common
decency.

Me: If people ought to be hunting each other, perhaps you’d
like to put your money where your mouth is and become the first target.

Her: Wh-What are you saying?

Me: Well, since it’s not ok for people to kill animals, but it
is ok to kill other people, perhaps you’d be willing to go
first.

Her: N-No…I don’t…I mean…That’s not fair!

Me: Oh, you want it to be fair? Since when is cold-blooded murder fair?

Her: I’m going home now…

Me: Good! If you want to protest against hunting, do
something like quote the statisics about beer verus bullets.
Advocating murder is just morally and ethically unacceptable.

Enviro-nazi

This woman was at a downtown parking lot harassing anyone driving an
SUV or other large vehicle, like a pickup truck or full-size car.

Her: Save the ozone. Drive a hybrid.

Me: Ok, so we shift our dependency from oil to coal.

Her: That’s not what I said. I said drive a hybrid.

Me: Where do you think the electricity that the hybrid needs comes from?

Her: BLANK LOOK

Me: Most eletric generation plants derive their power from
coal, which by the way, creates more pollution than gasoline.

Me: Riiight, and so you’re willing to give up your air
conditioner and your full size refrigerator so that there’s enough
electric power generation to serve every vehicle you see here.

Her: Uhhh…nooo… that’s not really necessary.

Me: Yes, it is. Do the math. Even if you assume
that every vehicle here is a small four-cylinder engine, how much power
do you think it takes to get them down the road?

Her: Uhhh….I don’t really know.

Me: That’s obvious. Let’s just say that there a LOT of
killowatt hours sitting here in this parking lot. Now, how
precisely do you plan to come up with them? Do you want your
house next to a wind farm?

Her: Well…no, they’re noisy.

Me: Ok, since noise is a problem, perhaps we could put solar panels on your roof?

Her: I really don’t want to put anything ugly on my house.

Me: So, still waiting to see where you’re going to come up with the power?

Her: Well, they can walk.

Me: Did you walk to get down here?

Her: Uh, no, I didn’t.

Me: Where’s your car then?

Her: Over there – (points to a Ford Excursion – the largest SUV Ford makes)

Me: Let me see if I get this, you’re down here in an SUV protesting about people driving non-hybrid SUV’s.

Her: (Angry now) I just want gas prices to go down. If people use less gas, the prices will drop.

Me: Ah, so you want the rest of us to give up our cars so you can keep yours.